Tag: Italian - The Cherry plum kitchen

I know exactly why I decided to cook Penne Rigate alla Vodka this week.

It’s all the fault of C J Sansom. If I’m alone in the kitchen for any length of time I’ll invariably start listening to an audio book. This week it’s been ‘Dark Fire’. Book 2 in a brilliant series. It’s 1540 and Matthew Shardlake is working for Thomas Cromwell again. I can’t help but know 1540 is the year the very non-fictional Lord Cromwell’s head was parted from his neck … so there I am waiting for the axe to fall. Literally.

Shardlake’s mission ..?

Well, Cromwell wants to discover the secret of Greek Fire. Can he? I’ll not spoil it for you, but an idle comment from a passing son ruined the suspense for me. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the journey. Who put the boy in the well? Why won’t Elizabeth speak? And is Greek Fire really the new drink from Russia?

Which is how it happened I reached for the vodka bottle.

All I need to feed a family of seven.

The vodka in my cupboard is a British potato vodka. It even comes with a union-jack-bow tied round the bottle neck.

I really do think you get what you pay for when it comes to dried pasta. Sadly. I like De Cecco and Garofalo. Le Veneziana do a good gluten-free penne.

Begin by putting water on to boil. It always takes far longer than I expect to get it up to an angry boil. Lid on – will speed the process up. (Aga: bring it up to the boil on the floor of the Roasting Oven as that’ll keep the heat in your cooker.)

Allow 1 litre/1¾pints of water, minimum, for every 100g/3½oz pasta. That’ll stop it sticking together. Don’t add the salt yet. And don’t add any oil. There’s no point. It’ll just float on the top.

Chop the ham into chunky cubes.

Chop some flat-leaf parsley.

The stalks can go in a freezer bag and be popped into the freezer ready for home-made stocks.

Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the ham, parsley and some tomato purée. Give it a stir and let it cook away for ten minutes or so over a gentle heat.

Season with coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Now it’s the vodka. I like to cook my vodka ‘out’. (If you want a stronger vodka flavour don’t add it now. Mix it in with the cooked and drained pasta later, before adding it all to the sauce.)

When the vodka has all but evaporated, I add the cream.

And that’s the sauce done.

By now the water should be boiling. Adding the salt now gets it swirling around the pan from the get-go – 10g/¼oz of salt per litre/1¾ pint of water. It’s quite a lot, but it’s all the seasoning the pasta is going to get. I was taught to think ‘salty like the mediterranean sea’.

Penne rigate is the traditional choice of pasta shape for this dish. (Penne means ‘quills’ in Italian and rigate is the ridged version.) Portion size depends on what you are doing. I use 70g/3oz of dried pasta for a first course and 100g/3½oz for a main course.

After adding the pasta, quickly put the lid back on and bring it back to a rolling boil as soon as possible. As soon as it is, lid off again. My packet states a cooking time of 11 minutes – so I set the timer for 10. Al dente is the point at which the pasta is cooked through – no chalky centre – but there is still some ‘bite’. I don’t think I’ve ever cooked my pasta for as long as the packet suggests.

Before you drain the cooked pasta – scoop out a little of the cooking water. If you want to loosen the finished dish the starchy water is the perfect thing to use.

Tip the pasta into the sauce and stir together.

Transfer to a warmed serving dish. Personally, I don’t serve ‘Penne Rigate in Vodka’ with parmesan as I don’t think it needs it.

All those ridges hug the sauce. Delicious.

Eat.

Penne Rigate in Vodka

Serves 7

100g/4oz unsalted butter
2 thick slices of ham, flexible
4 tablespoons of tomato purée
2 tablespoons of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
10 tablespoons of double cream
6 tablespoons of vodka
700g/12oz penne rigate
Salt and pepper

Start by getting the water for cooking the pasta on to boil. It needs to be a fast, rolling boil. Think ‘angry Mediterranean sea’.

Melt the butter in a large sauté pan. Add the ham, the parsley and the tomato purée. Cook over a gentle heat for about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Stir in the vodka and cook until it has evaporated. Then add the cream and warm through before taking it off the heat.

Once the water is boiling, add the salt. 10g/2oz for every litre/1¾ pints of water. Now add the pasta and give it all a stir. Replace the lid and bring it back to a fast boil. As soon as it’s boiling, remove the lid again. You’ll need to stand by and give it the occasional stir. (Aga: Keep the lid on and put it into the Simmering Oven for the same cooking time as you’d do on the hob). Don’t rely on the packet instructions as it’s often less. Cook until al dente.

Scoop out a little of the starchy pasta water and reserve. Use to thin the sauce, if necessary.

Drain. Transfer the cooked pasta to the sauce and mix together.

Eat.

Print.

Spaghetti alla carbonara is an incredibly popular supper in my house. I suppose it’s not so very far removed from ‘eggs and bacon’ which might account for it.

Most of the recipes, published in the UK, are rich with double cream …

… but not this one.

It does make me wonder what they put in those gloopy jar sauces … The ingredients list is tiny. Store-cupboard/freezer stuff, really.

My carbonara sauce changed after a second visit to Rome. A fellow foodie had sent me on a trek to Trastevere and, more specifically, ‘Da Carlone’. Should you wish to follow in my footsteps you find it in Via della Luce 5, near Isola Tiburina.

Their carbonara was not heavy. Not gloopy. No wimpy bits of streaky bacon.

Da Carlone use guanciale which is pig cheek – and it was delicious. I’ve never been able to find that, so my replacement is pancetta. Helpfully, my local deli sells some beautiful pancetta. Don’t worry about the fat. Really.

Cut it up into nice bite-sized pieces.

Get your water on to boil. It’s 1 litre of water for every 100g dried pasta. Minimum. You need this quantity of water because the pasta will release lots of starch and too little water will see it being re-absorbed.

Keep the lid on – it will boil faster. Just before the water comes to the boil you add the salt. 10g for every litre of water is the guideline. This feels like a lot. I can’t honestly say I measure it, but I add until I feel like I’ve overdone it .. and never have. Coarse salt is preferable.

Think ‘as angry and as salty as the mediterranean sea’.

There’s no need to add any oil. If you think about it – oil floats on the surface of water so it’s not going to do anything to stop your spaghetti sticking together. (The only exception is lasagne sheets – a little bit of oil keeps them seperate as you slide them into the saucepan.)

Do I weigh my pasta??? Sometimes. Every now and then I give my portion sizes a check – it’s all too easy to supersize without meaning to.

How much per person depends on whether you are going all out. Pasta is often the Primo course – that’s the one slotted between Antipasto and Secondo. It’s smaller. 50g-ish, as there’s so much else to come. 100g per person is what I cook for a standalone family supper. 6ft menfolk get a larger portion than I give myself.

Give the bundle of spaghetti a bash on the work surface and it will splay out like a sheaf of corn. To be truthful I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sheaf of corn, but it’s how I imagine one might look …

Add the spaghetti to your fiercely boiling water. Give it a stir with a wooden fork and put the lid back on. You want the water to come back to the boil as quickly as possible.

Then lid off again … and get on with the sauce.

Roll the sage up and cut into little strips. Chiffonade is the posh name – just in case you need it for a charity quiz night.

Bash the garlic cloves, no need to peel. Love that.

Put the ‘good’ olive oil – yes, really – this is a time for the pricey extra-virgin olive oil – in a huge skillet type pan. On a low heat, warm the oil so that it’s flavoured with the sage and garlic. It’s all very … gentle.

Now add the pancetta cubes.

They are done when they look like this. Turn off the heat.

Fish out the garlic cloves. Their work is done. (If you love garlic, it’s almost irresistible not to squeeze it on some toast. Cooks’ perks?!?)

You need two eggs and one egg yolk for a ‘carbonara’ for four. (All the normal reservations about raw or lightly cooked eggs apply – ‘not for the very young, the elderly, when pregnant or for people with suppressed immunity’.)

Beat together in a bowl. Add the finely grated parmesan or pecorino and lots and lots of black pepper. Have your unsalted butter, cubed and ready.

Odd picture, I know. But, it’s back to the spaghetti. If you are feeding Italians you have to concentrate here. Soggy, water logged pasta wins no plaudits. Al dente. That’s cooked through with a slight bite so you know you are chewing something but no uncooked pasta at the centre. Test a strand 1 minute before the minimum cook time on the spaghetti packet.

Then, and this is why there’s this picture, scoop off a little of the starchy water before you drain the spaghetti.

There’s no need to be too thorough. A little water is all to the good. Return the drained spaghetti to the hot saucepan and add the butter. Give it all a good stir so the butter melts and coats the spaghetti strands.

Turn the heat on beneath the pancetta pan and tip the coated spaghetti into it. Stir to coat with flavoured oil and disperse the pancetta cubes.

Then tip the spaghetti into a warmed serving bowl and immediately add the cheesy egg mixture. Stir. The hot spaghetti will ‘cook’ the eggs. (If you’ve got everything too hot you’ll end up with scrambled eggs. It looks revolting but will taste just fine.)

A few tablespoons of the reserved starchy water will make everything silky smooth and surprisingly creamy tasting.

That’s it. A little parsley would have looked pretty but it tastes better without it. Lots of Parmesan or Pecorino, freshly grated. Buon appetito.

Spaghetti alla carbonara – Serves 4

2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
6 sage leaves
2 garlic cloves, bashed
150g/5oz guanciale or pancetta, cubed
400g/13oz good quality dried spaghetti
2 whole eggs and 1 egg yolk
a handful of Parmesan/Pecorino – about 8 tablespoons, finely grated
60g/2¼oz unsalted butter, cubed
coarse sea salt
Freshly grated black pepper

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil and prepare all the ingredients. It helps to have everything ready.

Gentle warm the oil in a large frying pan or skillet and add the sage and garlic. Once the oil is flavoured, add the guanciale or pancetta cubes and fry over a higher heat until golden brown and the delicious fat partially melted. Remove the garlic cloves.

Cook the spaghetti in vigorously boiling salty water.

Beat the eggs and egg yolk together. Add the finely grated cheese and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

Once the spaghetti is al dente, drain. Make sure to reserve a little of the starchy water before doing so.

Return the cooked spaghetti to the hot saucepan and immediately add the cubed butter. Stir to melt the butter and coat the spaghetti strands.

Tip into the pan in which you have the guanciale or pancetta. Stir fry over a medium heat for a few minutes. Let the flavourful oil coat the pasta and disperse the bite sized guanciale or pancetta.

Transfer to a warmed serving dish. Tip in the egg and cheese mix with 3-4 tablespoons of the starchy water. You may need a little more to create a smooth, fluid sauce. Stir to combine. Serve immediately.

Extra parmesan/pecorino to grate over is lovely. Buon appetito.